1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing equipment connected to peripheral equipment, an image display program product to be executed on the information processing equipment, and an image forming system provided with the peripheral equipment and the information processing equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a peripheral equipment such as a printer which is connected to an information processing equipment such as a personal computer (PC) is operative to perform a printing operation by using a printer driver compatible with the printer. Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-10741 discloses an information processing system for automatically judging a state of a designated printer in response to designation of printing by an operator. The information processing system is so configured as to issue an alert to the operator indicating that prompt printing by a designated printer is not executable in response to operator's designation to perform printing by the printer through a personal computer, and to display the status of use of the other printer or printers in a list.
In the above information processing system, in the case where printing by the printer designated by the operator is not executable, merely the list of the status of use of the other printer(s) is displayed. Accordingly, the operator is required to judge by himself or herself the status of use of the respective printers based on the displayed list. Thus, the operator finds it impossible or difficult to instantaneously distinguish a printer which is available for prompt printing from a printer which is not available for prompt printing. The operator has a difficulty in readily designating the printer to be used, which leaves room for improvement on operability.